IMF chief held without bail in sex assault case

Last Updated 1:10 p.m. ET

NEW YORK - A New York City judge has ordered the head of the International Monetary Fund be held without bail until his next court date on allegations that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid.

The arraignment of IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn came a day after he submitted to DNA testing and a forensic exam that included looking for scratches or other evidence of the alleged assault, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.

Looking tired and grim, the 62-year-old French politician appeared Monday before a Manhattan judge, accused of attacking a 32-year-old maid Saturday inside his $3,000-a-night suite. She had gone in to clean what she thought was an empty room.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

Strauss-Kahn faces charges including attempted rape, sex abuse, criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The top count is punishable by five to 25 years in prison.

Manhattan prosecutors asked Judge Melissa Jackson to hold Strauss-Kahn without bail, saying his position as IMF head had taken him out of the country previously and that the IMF leader was wealthy and doesn't live in New York.

"He has almost no incentive to stay in this country and every incentive to leave," Assistant District Attorney John A. McConnell said. "If he went to France, we would have no legal mechanism to guarantee his return to this country."

Defense attorneys had suggested that prosecutors set bail at $1 million, and promised Strauss-Kahn would remain in New York City.

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Miller reports that, according to police, Strauss-Kahn was in the bathroom at his Sofitel Hotel suite when he allegedly came out naked, locked the suite door, and forced the maid onto the bed. She told police he tried to take her clothes off. When she resisted, he allegedly dragged her to the bathroom and forced her to perform a sex act.

Three hours later, at John F. Kennedy International Airport, police arrested Strauss-Kahn as he was seated in first class - just 10 minutes before his Air France flight to Paris was scheduled to take off.

Later, the maid reportedly identified him in a police lineup.

Strauss-Kahn's job running the International Monetary Fund placed him in a key role in efforts to stem the European debt crisis, forming aid packages for Greece and Ireland.

"The Fund is a very conservative institution," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It had supported orthodox economic policies that were in a lot of ways responsible for the crisis, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn was trying to take the Fund in a different direction."

CBS News correspondent Vicki Barker reported Monday that the shocking news of Strauss-Kahn's arrest is exerting downward pressure on the euro in morning trading.

The twice-divorced but currently married Strauss-Kahn admitted an affair with a subordinate three years ago; his reputation got him the nickname, "The Great Seducer."

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Sources inside the IMF tell CBS News that Strauss-Kahn always kept his job because of his abilities in the banking world, but his future in that position is now uncertain, to say the least.

One IMF insider told CBS News that Strauss-Kahn had righted the International Monetary Fund ship after poor performances by the last two managing directors. "He's done an excellent job," she said, in an institution which depends on hierarchical leadership. Now with first deputy managing director John Lipsky filling in, there is familiar leadership at the helm, but, she said, "We're still floored. It just doesn't sound like him."

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White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters traveling with President Obama today that the U.S. believes the IMF can still execute its mission effectively.

According to police, they caught a break in arresting Strauss-Kahn. He called the hotel looking for his cell phone, and a hotel employee lied and asked how he could return it to him. It was only then that investigators learned he was about to leave the country from JFK.

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The charges against Strauss-Kahn have stunned the global financial world and upended French presidential politics.

A former economics professor, Strauss-Kahn served as French industry minister and finance minister in the 1990s, and is credited with preparing France for the adoption of the euro by taming its deficit.

He took over as head of the IMF in November 2007. The 187-nation lending agency provides help in the form of emergency loans for countries facing severe financial problems.

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer said the coming months were to have marked the pinnacle of what truly has been a stellar career, and was seen as a strong center-left candidate for President Sarkozy's job - but that his political ambitions have almost certainly been sunk.

Above: People riding the Paris Metro read newspaper coverage of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York, May 16, 2011. (Franck Prevel/Getty Images)

Palmer said that a French writer, Tristane Banon, who had previously alleged in a TV interview that Strauss-Kahn had also assaulted her, is now considering legal action.

Strauss-Kahn was supposed to be meeting in Berlin on Sunday with Merkel about increasing aid to Greece, and then join EU finance ministers in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday. The IMF is responsible for one-third of Greece's existing loan package, and his expected presence at these meetings underlined the gravity of the Greek crisis.

A member of France's Socialist party, Strauss-Kahn was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose political fortunes have been flagging.

Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet lamented the shadow the incident could cast on all of France.

"I'm very surprised to see at what speed in France we rush to political conclusions about a subject that is a serious one. He is accused of very serious acts. We are hardly speaking at all of the alleged victim," she said Monday on Canal-Plus television. In addition to the hotel maid, Koscuisko-Morizet said there is another "clear victim, which is France."